Call
by LondonBelow
Summary: Mark goes to collect Roger from the rehab clinic, but conditions are not as he expected. Chapter Eight: A visit to Collins. WARNING: Certain bits of anatomy are discussed in chapter 4
1. The Call

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The arrangement of the words, that's my choice, so yes, I sort of own that. But nothing else.

Mark's voice opened with an average enough message. "Hi, you've reached Maureen and Mark. We're not answering the phone right now--"

"--probably because we're having hot, passionate sex," Maureen cut in. "Come join in. Or come to my demonstrations, it's even better, 11:00 p.m. Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays…"

Her recorded voice went on to give an address and further innuendo and blatant references to sex and sexuality. A year ago, Roger would have laughed, doubly hard if Mark was in the room to laugh with and at. He would have snorted helplessly at "doubly hard". A lot had happened in the past year, and Roger didn't much want to laugh.

A loud beep interrupted Maureen. Roger shifted the phone, the plastic earpiece burning his skin. His pulse raced. He breathed deeply a few times, leaving condensation on the telephone and a record of heavy breathing on the answering machine. "Mark," he blurted like a sentence. Then, after a moment, "I'm at the clinic. Um…" The address was written on a card beneath the desk's heavy glass cover. "Mark, I… need you. Here. Please, I--"

"Roger?" It was Mark. "Are you okay?"

Roger's shoulders slumped forward as tension fled, his spine curved over the desk. It was the first thing patients saw at the clinic, the desk, usually with someone behind it, in the room with blue and white wallpaper. "Fine. Fine."

"You said you needed me," Mark reminded him. His tone hovered between emotions, not yet upset at the worry Roger had caused him--though, should that worry prove pointless, Mark would be upset--nor completely placated with the empty words. He needed more information.

"I do," Roger said. _I do need you._ It sounded pathetic and sexual, precisely the reason he avoided the final two words. _Need you_. It was something out of a marriage proposal or an apology. It was not a phrase involved in a telephone call made from a rehabilitation center. Roger needed to explain to Mark that this was not an emotional reliance. He needed Mark to know that he could look after himself. _I am clean_, he thought firmly, but the HIV felt like dirt in his blood. "It's for--"

But Mark had only one question: "Now?"

Roger nodded.

"Did you just nod into the telephone?" Mark asked. The worry was gone.

"Uh…" Roger traced designs on the glass with the edge of his pinkie finger. "Yeah." He blushed.

Mark sounded amused as he asked, "Are you blushing?" _Same old predictable Roger._

Roger blushed a darker pink. He glanced around the room; two new inmates of the voluntary clinic were filling out paperwork with the aid of a blond nurse in green scrubs. Donald and Katie, two teenagers proudly bearing the blue smock of the volunteer, filed papers with quiet chatter. She laughed at something and punched his shoulder gently. He shoved her off, playfully.

Roger brought the phone directly beside his mouth. He could almost feel the plastic against his lips. "Yeah," he whispered. The bottom of his stomach was disintegrating. "Mark--"

"Yeah," Mark said. "I'll be there in half an hour."

"Thank you!"

"Sure."

Mark hung up the phone.

Donald turned to Roger. "He's coming?" Donald asked. He was seventeen, with dark hair that looked as though it had not encountered a comb or razor in at least two of those seventeen years. His eyes were hidden, but Roger knew they were trained upon the soon-to-be-released rehabilitant.

"Yeah," Roger said. He hung up the phone. "I won't be seeing you, then."

"We could--" Katie began, then bit her lip and filed vigorously, an admirable act as filing demanded a slow hand. "Never mind."

"All set for college, Don?" Roger asked.

Donald nodded. "NYU," he said, "I think. I got admission at Berkeley, you know, out in California?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, they say it only drizzles there, and…"

Roger kept Donald talking for the thirty-two minutes it took Mark to arrive at the clinic, not that this was a feat of note. Donald talked at length whenever given the opportunity; having an active listener was a benefit but not a necessity. When Mark walked through the door, camera in hand, Roger politely silenced Donald long enough to say, loudly, "Mark!"

"Roger." Mark lowered his camera. "It's been a while. I don't know if I told you I was sorry about everything."

"Thanks." To Donald and Katie, he added, "This is the 'I'm sorry' they give you when a relative dies." Then, to Mark, "Look, the thing is--I tried to tell you over the phone. I'm not O.R." There was a sharp intake of breath from behind him, but Mark's face registered nothing. "On my own resourses. That's O.R. If I leave the clinic today," Roger explained, "I need to be… in custody." He struggled for the words; they didn't fit. _What if it's like this when I try it again…?_ He dared a glance at the instrument case at his feet. Because Mark had said nothing, Roger tried to lay his meaning out plainly: "Will you take legal responsibility for me?"

Mark felt his jaw unhinge. It did not, however, drop. Nor was he angry. Somehow Roger seemed to be allowing him to say no, without saying "feel free to deny me" as insisted a positive reply. He had no hangdog expression; rather than stuffing his hands in his pockets and staring at the floor, Roger had his hands awkwardly dangling at his sides, his eyes boring into Mark.

The answer was in his mouth already. It had been there, always, so Mark was unsurprised when his mouth opened and said, "Sure."

As they were leaving, paperwork with Mark's signature in Katie's hands, Mark reached for Roger's pathetic duffel bag, the container of all his worldly possession save the guitar. "That's okay," Roger said, swinging the bag onto his shoulder. Around his neck fluttered a grey scarf he had not seen before.

Before Mark had the chance to reach for the guitar, Roger had the instrument held tightly in his arms.

"You haven't played in months, have you?"

"Not since April."

TO BE CONTINUED

Well, here it is! That was my first try at writing fanfiction for RENT. Feedback is always appreciated, I hope anyone who's reading this enjoyed it. Also, I don't know much about rehab centers; the O.R. release is a question when leaving prison.


	2. TwentyOne Days

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The arrangement of the words, that's my choice, so yes, I sort of own that. But nothing else.

"Wait, wait here a minute."

Roger knew what Mark wanted to do. He groaned, but suppressed his whines. _Mark didn't have to take me. Mark could've left me there in the clinic. Twenty-one days…_ It was the period for which Mark would essentially be Roger's legal guardian, a period otherwise spent in a rehabilitation clinic. Roger shuddered. The clinic had done him wonders, truly, but…

The symptoms had protected Roger. First he was exhausted but unable to sleep, shaking with the pain, sweating… After that, when he could walk three steps without falling, feed himself and make his way to the bathroom, when he should have been humiliated at being unable to be alone for five minutes, even for a shower, the depression cushioned him. Though he loathed himself, Roger was comfortable. He was safe.

Suddenly the corridor seemed huge to Roger. Suddenly he wondered, who would catch him if he fell? It was one thing to stand in a group forced to hold hands with those around him and chant out strength, but Roger knew. He knew the streetcorners where he could buy smack from The Man. Achingly he fingered the bills in his pocket. He hadn't many, but enough for a hit…

"Roger? Come on, come inside!" Mark was calling him. Obediently, Roger plastered a smile on his face and strode into the apartment. "November second, nineteen-eighty-nine, Roger Davis returns to the apartment he and I rented together…"

Through the lens, Mark saw Roger for the first time. He was unshaven and haggard, and he looked tired. Even so, there was his smile, not a grimace but a well-lied grin, his open posture, the fact that he was playing along. Mark lowered the camera.

"You wanna go lie down?" he asked.

Roger shook his head. "Nah. Some coffee, that's all. Still in the same place?" Without awaiting a response, he strode into the apartment, set down his gear then hurried to the kitchen and held a pot under the tap. A nap would have been nice. In fact, Roger's muscles were berating him for turning down the offer as he struck a match to create a flame under the water. But he needed Mark to know that 'legal guardian' was a technical term. He needed to prove himself a clean, self-sufficient man. "Do you want…?"

"No, thanks, I'm good." The assertion made Mark uncomfortable. Roger had always been independent, but never to the point of claiming not to need someone. Mark couldn't count the number of times he had held out a cup of coffee to his lethargic roommate, the number of times he had taken the cup. "So… Collins left," he said. "He's at, uh, MIT, teaching, you know, philosophy."

Roger nodded. "He came to visit before he left the city. Mark?"

"Hm?"

It humiliated Roger beyond imagining to admit, "That was... the first time." _The first time._ That was back in the summer, when Roger was released with a fair amount of his savings from his days as a successful musician, when Roger was released on his own resources.

_"I'm sorry… I don't like being seen this way." Stop it, he told himself. In seconds you'll be crying like a little girl._

_Collins had laughed. "Roger, you've got nothin' to be ashamed of here. We've all wanted you to get help for a long time, and we're all proud you're finally doing it." Collins said things like that, raw, honest things Roger would never dream of stating so baldly. He looked away, embarrassed by his friend's honesty. "C'mon, Rog. You're as much a man in a paper dress, shaking and kicking."_

_"Shut up, Collins. For my sake?"_

_"Okay. How about, I'll miss you while I'm away?"_

_"It won't be the same," Roger said. Nothing was._

Roger took a scrap of cloth and laid it over his thumb and forefinger, the two digits forming a circle, then he formed a bag of the cloth as though making a rude gesture. The resulting shallow was filled with ground coffee, the bag tied tightly with twine. "We need a proper coffee… um… pot?" Only the final word was a question.

Previously awkwardly watching Roger, Mark now had something to do, a query to respond to. What he wanted to say was, _Maybe we can pick up a cheap one at a junk sale._ But that would have offended Roger, who was touchy to begin with. Had he changed? Had rehab or the lack of smack made him a different person? A part of Mark wanted to know. That was the part of him that knew, somehow, he would learn to swim if he jumped into the deep end. Memories of that day surged vividly: bright, six-year-old Mark, sloshing wetly to the pool at the Jewish Community Center, the purity of the water color and the knowledge that if he submerged himself completely, without fear, he would bounce to the top and swim away, the painfully vibrant orange water wings unrelated.

"Yeah. And maybe some legal heating?" he commented sarcastically. Like the other first-timers, Mark had lined up that day and paddled his blue Styrofoam kickboard around the two-foot shallow end.

Roger laughed. "Yeah. Merry Christmas-Hanukkah, Mark. Here's a radiator and half the rent."

"Uh, speaking of which, I hate to bring this up, but--"

Roger raised his eyes from the pot, where he slowly trailed the bag of coffee through boiling water. "I know," he said. "I'll come up with it."

Mark nodded. "Okay."

"So, is Maureen still living here?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, she's… out."

Roger said what Mark left quiet, "You don't know where."

"Uh… no," Mark admitted.

Roger grinned at him. "I won't make the whip noises, but only because you've been good to me today."

Mark laughed, but the sound was painful and nearly as transparently false as Roger's grin. _Stop it, please_, Mark wanted to tell him. _You know you can't lie to me. Stupid Roger. Stupid, false Roger._ A serious of loud, electronic beeps interrupted his thought. At first the noise alarmed Mark, but he relaxed as Roger fiddled with a small black box, telling it to shut up. "What is that?" Mark asked.

"Nothing," Roger said. "It tells me when to take my pills." He poured them into his hand. Mark could tell they were multiple, but before he had a chance to zoom in Roger had swallowed them dry. Quickly, he poured himself a cup of coffee, leaving the limp, sodden 'coffee bag' on the counter to dry for re-use.

"What… what are they?" Mark asked.

Roger tried to shrug the matter off. "Nothing," he said again. "AZT um… it sort of keeps it--keeps the virus from remaking itself. I don't know."

_But it keeps me alive. _

TO BE CONTINUED

New chapter two: originally I set this in June, but a few plot changes (read: lack of foresight) caused a slight delay in events.

I have researched AZT, but I don't understand it completely, so if anything I wrote or proceed to write is glaringly inaccurate, let me know and I'll fix it. And thanks to everybody who reviewed, that's always a happy event.


	3. The Clinic Again

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The arrangement of the words, that's my choice, so yes, I sort of own that. But nothing else.

_He kicked the blanket away, his legs bursting with energy, moving against his control. The sheets clung to his body, soaked with sweat, as he shook from the cold. The pain, the cold and the pain drove Roger into the fetal position, but he could not bring his body in fully for the cramps in his arms and the spasms in his legs._

_"A-augh!" he had never before heard such a scream, only read it off a page. Had that been him? Had that gurgling, drowning cry come from Roger? Unable to discern, freezing, he scrabbled for the blanket and fell to the floor. The slamming shock brought up what little he had eaten in the past… day? Roger could not recall eating. He must have, but he could not recall… anything! It was all a burst of pain._

_He coughed, still shaking, to clear his throat of vomitus, and managed to lever himself up, leaning on his arms, shaking doubly from the exertion. He vomited again and collapsed, unwilling to hold himself up anymore. It hurt. This… thing, it HURT! "April! April!" What had she done to him? "What've you done to me! Left me here with this, April!"_

_He threw up again. _

_He had loved her. She had held a power over him with her intoxicating smell, oozing the knowledge of her sex, the secrecies she alluded to, hinted to tell him of. Nothing in her power had touched the severity of his pain now. For all her innate knowledge so incomprehensible to him, she knew nothing of the pain, could not have endured this. He could not endure it._

_An iron fist clenched around his stomach, and Roger coughed burning bile into the growing pile on the floor._

_"Jesus, G-d, G-d dammit!" Roger never went to church. He did not pray at his bedside. In times of trouble, he never asked succor from any higher power. Nothing remotely compare with this. Nothing had ever hurt like this, been this impossible. Not losing April. Not anything._

_And a part of him knew that there was no help coming, though the night workers at the clinic were lifting him back onto the bed, sloshing sawdust onto the ground. The blanket was drawn over him, and though Roger was freezing cold he began to burn. _

_He began to cry, though he felt the tears evaporate, shrinking in fear away from his flesh. No one was coming. There was no April, the mysterious pinnacle of passion. The religious figures had been invoked as obscenities. No one. Christ, it hurt. Christ, like any other swear. Christ._

_"Mark! Mark! Mark!" It hurt too much! The pain was too pure, pure as a blaze of fire ripping through him, and Roger would die, gladly die…_

"Right here, Roger."

"What…?" Roger opened his eyes. He lay in his old bed, the dilapidated mattress sinking into the naked metal frame. The scraps of curtain fluttered over the window, streaking moonlight. And there was Roger, pale in the lunar shine, sweating from a bad dream, gasping for air. Mark sat on the edge of the bed, one hand on Roger's shoulder. "What're you doing?" Roger asked. "In my room," he added quickly.

"What are you doing, calling his name in your sleep?" asked Maureen. Roger had not seen her before. She lounged in the doorway.

"I did?" Roger asked Mark.

Maureen replied, "Yep. Must've been some dream."

Before he could examine physically whether he had had this sort of dream, Roger blushed. None of the signs were present, though: the blanket lay flat, and Roger was fairly sure his trousers were dry. "I don't think it was like that," he said.

"You don't know?" Mark asked gently.

Roger shook his head. He nearly answered that he recalled nothing of the nightmare, but a familiar sensation caused him to shove Mark away and stumble out of bed. "Where are you going?" Mark called as Roger, running clumsily, passed by Maureen. "It's midnight!"

Roger vomited noisily into the sink. Maureen, given a full view from her vantage point, wrinkled her nose. "Men are not as sexy as they like to think," she commented. "I'm going back to bed. You coming, Pookie?"

"In a bit." Had they reached a point at which they understood one another's expressions, Mark would have known that Maureen was implying that Mark and Roger were more than friends. Maureen, in turn, would have understood that Mark cared for Roger as for a brother, and he was not going to have marvelous intercourse while his brother puked himself into oblivion.

Maureen turned away and flounced back to bed. Mark sighed, shook his head, and went into the kitchen, where Roger was rinsing out the sink. He drew a mouthful of freezing water directly from the tap, shook his head and spat. The timer went off, and Roger hissed at it. "Hey!" Mark called, annoyed. "Take your AZT!"

"I will." The words blended as they rushed from Roger's mouth. He grasped the side of the basin, what muscle remained in his back tight against the skin.

The sickness had brought cold beads of sweat over Roger's body. The moonlight shone silver across his top, and with his lower half obscured by shadow, Mark couldn't help but wonder: "Do you always sleep naked?"

Roger looked up in surprise. "I'm not naked," he said. "I'm wearing pants."

"Oh." Mark looked down. A part of him was tempted to smack his roommate's rear end, just to get a rise out of him. Just to bring back the old Roger, perverted and proud of it. That boy had never stopped smiling. Mark wished he could do something to make Roger smile and come back to life, anything to stop the contagious emptiness. "Yeah. You are." Forcing himself to meet Roger's eyes, he persisted, "Why are you sick? I thought you were over that. Over withdrawal." _Again._

"I am."

"You haven't taken…?"

"No!" The answer came too quickly for Mark's liking. In truth it came swiftly because Roger could not bite it back, nor could he keep all the venom behind his teeth. He managed not to snap: even so, Mark recoiled slightly. "I'm clean. It's the AZT."

"Take it," Mark said again. When Roger shot him a withering look, he asked, "How often do you need it?"

"Once every four hours."

Mark winced. "Take it," he insisted. "Do you think you're going back to bed?" Roger only laughed. "Me, too. I'll make the coffee." The blue flame of the stove cast a brighter light than the moon. The silence built up between them, mounting painfully in Mark's chest because, unlike Roger, he had something to say, which he feared to say. "What were you dreaming?" Mark asked.

Roger shook his head and shrugged.

"You were calling my name," Mark said. When Roger blushed and looked at the ground, Mark added, "Before that you kept saying 'Jesus', and before that…" It took a moment and a deep swallow for Mark to say her name: "April."

"That's stupid, April's dead," Roger blurted quietly. Tension knotted his shoulders, and though he did not turn away from Mark neither did he face him.

"You don't have to… stop loving her, Rog," Mark said. "I mean, she's still… you were still with her, obsessed with her--"

"You don't know," Roger interrupted.

"Maybe not, but I know you."

"You won't know until you lose," Roger said, more quietly than before.

"Until I lose…?"

"Maureen."

Mark floundered desperately. "I--I--I'm not going to lose Maureen," he said.

Roger stared. Mark didn't see? He thought the pouted lips and the teddy-bear nicknames were only the soft points in Maureen's caustic exterior? Roger had been home less than a day, but he knew. _But how can I say it?_ The last thing he wanted was an angry Mark, because Mark rarely grew angry. Mark only became very sad, behind his camera. Roger's eyes flicked to the ever-present recorder.

"Yeah, you're right." _Why hurt him with it?_ Roger hated Mark's habit of babying him, by why would he do it if not because that was the treatment he expected? Why not devastate a friend save the fear of devastation? "I'm sorry, Mark."

Mark mumbled and shrugged.

_Shit._ He knew.


	4. One Hit

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The arrangement of the words, that's my choice, so yes, I sort of own that. But nothing else.

Mark was lying awake at four o'clock, staring into the darkness. Beside him, Maureen was snoring slightly more than gently. Mark's hand slipped beneath the bed to touch his camera. _AZT. What is that, anyway? At least when he was taking heroin I knew--no! That's not right. Roger's better off with the AZT. At least he's alive. Both seem to be hell for his digestive system, though…_ The nausea had yet to subside. If Roger ate the wrong thing or even drank too much coffee, he was coughing it into the sink within minutes. Mark groaned. The difficulty was that the single physical side effect of heroin was rather inconvenient in a single-bathroom flat.

Collins had taken the best approach to it, when he started his crusade to make Roger quit. _"It's a timer," he said, proud of himself, amused at his own cleverness as he held aloft a kitchen timer. "You get five minutes."_

_"Aw, come on," Roger whined. "What about time with my wingman?" he asked, indicating his groin. Mark, observing this, had brought his camera up stealthily. Some day the boys would appreciate the humor of the situation.It was strange, he noticed, that although Roger and Collins had very different senses of humor, both constantly seemed to be laughing, mostly at themselves._

_"Roger Junior doesn't need more than five minutes."_

_"Don't call it that!" Roger protested. "You know that's a suggestion of reproduction. We're happy, just us two."_

_"Do you realize that you just referred to your penis as a separate entity?" Mark asked, baffled. He was ignored._

_Collins set the timer by the bathroom. "I dare you," he told Roger._

_"You could just eat more vegetables," Mark suggested hopefully. "You know in the West they have vegetables all year? In California--" At that point Roger had turned stormy, and Mark shut his mouth._

_The following weeks were filled with comedy and humiliation as Roger, who would suffer constipation until he kicked the heroin, bought a girlie magazine so that whenever Collins began to knock on the door and sing patriotic ballads or the score from 'Fiddler on the Roof', Roger responded with the sounds of a man pleasuring himself._

_"Come on, Roger, how long can you spend on two inches?" Collins once asked._

_Roger retorted, "You mean in my colon, or are you insulting Shannon again?"_

_Mark shuddered. "Please stop calling your penis 'Shannon'," he said. "It makes me uncomfortable."_

_From the bathroom, Roger called, "Sorry--so, Collins, was that my colon you were referring to, or Marky?"_

Now the AZT. From Roger's room, a hopeful name for the semi-private cubbyhole in which he slept, came one short, electronic _beep!_ Immediately Roger silenced the contraption. He awoke every day at four a.m. to shut that thing off, and then rolled over and caught the four hours' sleep until the eight o'clock warning.

Mark listened. He heard no running water, no match struck to light the flame under the coffee pot. He heard no footsteps, but that evening they had been sitting around the table with bowls of cereal when, at eight o/clock, Roger took his AZT. The bottle had been left on the table. It had been there when Roger went to sleep, and when Mark and Maureen lay down in their bed. She slept, but he only shivered.

"Take your fucking AZT!" Mark cried. _I won't let you kill yourself, Roger. Take your fucking pills._

Roger did not stir. In the industrial loft, everything echoed. The squeaking springs echoed, footsteps carried. Mark heard neither. "Take your AZT!" Mark called again.

Maureen sighed and stood. "Maureen? What--"

She mumbled incoherently at him, then left the room and settled herself on the couch. Mark fell against his pillow and punched himself in the face. "Take your AZT," he whispered, so low the sound would not carry. "Take your fucking AZT."

It was ten o'clock that morning when Roger dragged himself out of the bedroom, scratching his head in a vain attempt to comb his hair. "Hey," he told Mark, then grabbed the box of cereal and swallowed a handful dry. He was jonesing. He had been through rehab not to need smack, but nothing could make Roger not _want_ it save Roger himself. Roger wanted it. He let himself want it.

"'Morning," Mark replied. Maureen had gone out. He couldn't say where because he didn't know.

Roger sat on their excuse for a kitchen counter, cereal box in one hand. He filled his mouth with yellow globelettes and water, both of which he took from his palm."Sorry about Maureen. She'll come round, I'm sure," Roger lied through a mouthful of cereal and tap water. He could think of no better way to make amends for his blunder, discussing Maureen's leaving Mark as though it was written in stone. After all, who could leave Mark?

"Thanks," Mark said. "And you have quite possibly the most disgusting eating habits--" He bit off the end of the sentence as Roger bared a mouthful of yellow sludge not unlike the goo spilling out of undercooked corn muffins. Mark shuddered. Roger swallowed and grinned. "Look, I can't hang around here all day, so… you know, do whatever you want, but don't do anything stupid, okay?" Mark wanted to add, _Take your AZT._ The words were on the tip of his tongue before he thought, _Don't. Don't baby him. Roger won't like it, Roger doesn't need it. Don't hurt him with that._ "Take care," Mark said instead, a bland aphorism.

Through another mouthful of cereal and water, Roger mumbled something that sounded very much like "Thuck oo, ooped dthakas." Mark grabbed his coat and left, laughing.

Roger tumbled another handful of Cap'n Crunch into his mouth and sucked a gulp of water from the tap. The loft seemed bigger without Mark. Roger shook his head, shaking out the thought--he didn't need Mark.

Yet, when he considered, it was strange being out of the clinic. There wasn't much to do inside, but support groups to go to, and as a rule every inmate played sports for an hour each day. That had been a good rule. Roger had hated it until he saw the staff try to cajole Joey, who weigh about three hundred pounds, outside. After that day, Roger never needed anyone to tell him it was time to go outside and kick around a soccer ball. He was first in line.

Roger leapt to the ground. The sound echoed through the loft; guiltily, he looked at the floor. "Sorry!" he called to the downstairs neighbor. Maybe he could still catch Mark. Why not, after all? Mark hadn't said not to follow him. He hadn't exactly invited Roger, but since when did Roger need an invitation? They were friends. Mark wouldn't mind.

Roger grabbed the faded green little-more-than-canvas jacket that kept him covered if not completely warm. He opened the door, jogged to the stairs, and froze.

There were rather a lot of stairs, and suddenly Roger felt dizzy. He grabbed the rail. All he could think of was falling.He felt his feet slipping, the ground falling away. Death forced itself into Roger's life; death stalked his conscience at night when he silenced his beeper without swallow those aggravating pills. Roger had accepted death, but he had accepted it from AIDS when his HIV, inevitably, exploded beyond control. He was prepared to die from the first cold he caught.

But that death existed everywhere, that Roger had been unprepared for. That the inevitablecould strike anywhere terrified him.

"I won't fall," he told himself, and stepped on to the first stair.

Roger's veins were itching. He knew where the junkies could be found, the dealers. Roger's hand slipped into his pocket. He hadn't much, only enough. He didn't need smack, but then who ever _needed_ anything? Since starting rehab, he hadn't had any feeling as purely euphoric as that he experienced from the drugs. One hit couldn't hurt.

One hit. That was all it had taken. For all he knew, that first hit with April was the one that had given him the sickness eating away at his blood. One hit.

Only one! It was enough. It could bring his spirits up again. Enough for a high, not enough for addiction. He could smile again. That would please Mark. One little hit.

Did he have any needles? No, he didn't need any needles. He wouldn't inject it--the high would be less, but the addiction also. Yes, just a little… all he needed was a spoon, heat, and the fumes--

Roger vomited.

TO BE CONTINUED

NOTE: Constipation is the single physical side effect of heroin use. Other effects, like chills and nausea, are of withdrawal.


	5. Beer

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The arrangement of the words, that's my choice, so yes, I sort of own that. But nothing else.

Mark tried, as he climbed the stairs to the loft, to digest what he had learned. He had been trying on the subway, as he walked, oblivious, his camera packed away in his bag. He felt as though he was floating, as though in spite of the support beneath his feet the world had fallen away from him.

Lost in thought, Mark saw nothing of his life. On the street he had bumped into people, mechanically apologized and continued onwards. On the stairs, he collided-- "Sorry"-- and continued up towards the loft. Half a floor later, he realized who he had bumped into and turned. "Maureen!" He clumsily jogged down the stairs after her. "Maureen, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there!"

"Oh," she said. "That's fine."

"So… you're going out again?" he asked. "When did you get back? I'm sorry I wasn't here, I went to the--to the library…" And then he saw it: the bag in Maureen's hand. "Wh-where're you going?" Mark asked, his voice higher than usual. It was one of her equipment bag, but she hefted it carelessly. "You're not performing tonight, remember?"

"Yeah," Maureen said.

"So you… you're setting up, um, already? For Friday?" he asked, pathetically hopefully.

"Actually, I found a new place," Maureen told him.

Mark nodded. "Well, that's, that's good, right? I mean, it's good for you to have your own place, and with Roger home, you know, it's… crowded, in the loft…" _Pathetic._ It had never been crowded when the five of them lived together--Maureen, Mark, Collins, Roger and Benny.

Maureen smiled at Mark. "We had fun, Pookie," she said, then leaned in and kissed his cheek. "It was a real good time."

Stunned, he could only manage, "Yes."

"But you're not really what I'm looking for right now…"

"It's been over a year!" Mark squeaked.

Maureen nodded. "It was a good year," she said. "But I've met someone, someone I can really connect with. There's this lawyer I met--"

Mark couldn't believe it. "A lawyer?" he asked. Surely he had misheard. "But… you're an artist. I'm an artist. We're not… like them."

"Neither is she," Maureen said.

"S-she?"

"Her name's Joanne, and she really gets me, you know? Well, you don't. If you did… well! So I'm moving in with her," Maureen concluded.

Mark tried vainly to understand. He knew that Maureen was leaving him in the same disconnected way he knew Roger was dying: his logical mind knew, but his emotions could not understand.

"So I'll see you at the performance space on Friday, right?"

"Uh… yeah," Mark said. "Yeah."

"Great. 'Bye, Mark."

He raised his hand in a pitiful, frozen wave. "'Bye," he said, and because he could think of nothing else do to, he raised his camera, wound it, and filmed his girlfriend, the love of his life, walk away. He filmed her bouncing step as his heart turned to dust, until filming her would mean following her. Then he left the dead relationship for the dying.

Mark looked around the loft. It had never seemed so cold to him before. It had never been steel and concrete. Mark dropped his camera onto a chair. Knowing Roger, he'd sit on it before realizing it was there. Mark moved his camera to the table. Where was Roger, anyway? "Could've at least left a note," Mark muttered. It was just like Roger, to leave and not say where. How was Mark to be legally responsible for Roger? It was like having a teenage daughter. Like having a disobedient dog.

He poked his head into Roger's space; it was more a space than a room. Had it always smelled like Roger, or was that a rejuvenated effect? If Mark knew what Roger had taken, he would know where he was. Everything was in its place: the guitar against the walls, the sheet undisturbed. _A tear in the mattress… it's so cliché, I thought no one did that. Zoom in,_ Mark thought.

Roger had left himself strewn across the bed, again in blue jeans, topless. One hand dangled over the edge of the mattress and nearly to the floor, two fingers on the lip of a beer bottle. _Beer. Beer, who drinks beer? Since when does Roger drink beer? Oh, shit._ It was Maureen's beer. Suddenly Mark wanted to grab that bottle and smash it over Roger's head, which he barely seemed to be using.

The AZT was sitting on the table, where it had been the previous evening. Mark opened the bottle and spilled its contents onto the table. He counted the capsules carefully, twice, to be certain, then checked the label. He sighed. Roger had taken only six pills. He should have taken the last one at noon the next day, but the bottle was nearly full. Roger wasn't lazy. He wasn't negligent.

"Dammit," Mark hissed. He clenched his fists against the leaden feeling in his gut. "You bastard." Roger wasn't stupid. He had a library card, he used it. The first time he went into rehab, Mark had returned works by Lenny Bruce, Samuel Beckett and Vaclav Havel to the library. When the three lived together, Mark remembered Collins and Roger staying awake into what they called "the genius hours", the time between nighttime and morning, talking about such authors, about society. Any time this was mentioned, Roger blushed and hurriedly changed the subject, but the truth was, he was a closet intellectual.

And he wasn't taking his AZT. He took heroin more regularly.

Mark picked up the phone and dialed out to Massachusetts. After three rings, an answer: "Yes?"

"Collins?" Mark asked hopefully.

"Mark?"

"Yeah."

"Hey! Hang on." Collins covered the mouthpiece of the phone, looked at the two juniors from the upper class of society who stood every chance of failing his class, and said, "I have to take this. You guys go, and remember, you don't ace every single paper from here on you're not passing my class." The boys nodded and left, complaining to one another. "Mark, how are you? You sound bad."

"It's bad. Collins…" Mark started to tremble. "Roger's dying," he said. His voice broke. Slowly, Mark filled his lungs. He exhaled, trembling, and inhaled again, until he wasn't shaking any longer.

"Shit. You mean, it's AIDS now? It's bad?"

Mark nodded, though Collins could not see him. "It's bad," he said again. "It's not AIDS, not yet, it's still HIV, but Collins, he won't take it."

"What?" Collins asked.

"He won't take his AZT," Mark explained. "What am I supposed to do, Collins?"

"Mark, just because I have AIDS doesn't mean I understand everyone who does," Collins said gently.

Mark tried to protest that he hadn't thought that, but in truth he had. He had hoped that Collins would understand Roger, offer some insight into his crazed psyche. "Even so…" Collins had a cleverness Mark couldn't rival. He had a wickedness to him, the same wickedness Roger had and responded to. "I thought maybe… something like the timer?" Mark asked. "You practically made him quit with that thing."

"Well, I don't know about that… Trick him," Collins suggested.

That caught Mark off his guard. "What?"

"Trick him," Collins repeated. "You know what he's taking?"

"Yeah, AZT."

"It's not just that, never is. Well, find out what else and trick him into taking it. You ever given a dog a pill?" Though Collins did not await a response, Mark began to understand. "So, wrap the AZT in peanut butter. Maybe not exactly peanut butter--"

Mark finished the sentence, "Because Roger only eats peanut butter when he's been smoking marijuana. I know. That's no good. He should stay clean right now. He's drinking beer, though."

"Uh… that's not ideal, but it'll do," Collins said. "If he won't take it knowingly, that's my suggestion. Trick him into it."

Needing to vent his frustration, Mark suggested, "Maybe I could beat him into taking it."

Collins laughed out loud. "Good one," he said. It had not been a joke. "Look, you'll sort it out. You've never given up on Roger before."

Mark smiled. "Yeah, but that was making him stop doing something," he said. "It's easy to make Roger do nothing, but something? I can't even get him to pick up his dirty socks." Again Collins laughed; this time the joke was intentional. "So, how're you? I feel bad, calling you up with my problems and not bothering to ask about yours."

"Thank you for assuming I have some! Alas, it's papers and papers over here. Grading and ganja, what more does a man need? I'm coming to visit you guys at Christmas."

"Excellent! I can't wait. Maybe Roger will've left the apartment by then," Mark commented, trying to sound vaguely hopeful and failing miserably.

"What do you mean?"

Mark sighed. "Sorry. We're on this again. He's been here a week, and it's… like he's scared. He won't leave. Half the time I come home and the landing smells like vomit. I don't want to ask him about it, but it's weird."

Collins asked, "You're sure he never goes out? Not just he gets home before you?"

"No, he doesn't leave," Mark said certainly. "You should see how pale he's gotten."

Collins groaned. "Did he do that the last time?"

From Roger's space, there was a dull groan. Mark glanced over his shoulder. "I should go," he said, "if I'm going to drug his beer before he wakes up. But thanks, Collins. We'll see you at Christmas."

"Good luck, man."

TO BE CONTINUED

Concerning Lenny Bruce: the man did stand-up comedy; he also wrote it book. It was an autobiography entitled _How to Talk Dirty and Influence People._ Concerning comedy, he said, "I am not a comedian. I am Lenny Bruce."


	6. Take Your AZT

Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize.

_It's practically midnight. It's eleven o'clock. I should sleep. I can't sleep._

Mark watched Roger sleep. He hadn't moved in the past five minutes save the normal breathing and twitches of a sound sleep. Unless Roger was playing opossum, which Mark doubted, this was the ideal moment to slip the pills into his beer. Mark looked at the bottle in his hand. What if it did him no good? Taking AZT without the accompanying antibiotics could be dangerous. The virus might become resistant.

"Take your AZT," he whispered. If only saying those words was not so dangerous when Roger was awake. If only Roger listened!

_What's the difference?_ Mark wondered. _I kill Roger or he kills himself. Where's the difference? Only the guilt._ Mark didn't want to be the thirteen-year-old sobbing over the test because though he'd aced it, he accidentally caught sight of another student's answer.

_"It says in Exodus," Mark, barely past his Bar Mitzvah, had told his rabbi, "'forgive my sin only this once'. So does that mean everyone only once gets forgiven for a sin? Because I really didn't mean it, really."_

_"I don't think you need to compare yourself to the Pharaoh of Egypt, Marcus. Besides, I'm sure you study hard and this test can't mean too much--best not worry about it too much."_

Mark shivered. No one had called him Marcus in years--Roger didn't even know that his full name was Marcus. He preferred Mark. It was short and simple, an explanation to which Roger would giggle and say that _short_ was certainly an apt descriptor for Mark. _The old Roger would, anyway,_ Mark thought. _The old Roger who cared about his life, who enjoyed it._

Mark looked again at Roger. As always, the ex-junkie slept as though someone had thrown him onto the bed like a discarded pair of pants, face-down and not completely on the bed, one ankle and one arm hanging over the edge of the mattress for a precarious balance.

Again Mark looked at the bottle. _I could trick him into taking his AZT. I could. _Why bother stashing pills in Roger's beer? More likely than not, Roger would be woken rather nastily as he fell off the bed and smashed the beer bottle to pieces. Mark's mood darkened nearly to full pitch. It was all too likely a scenario. Mark could already see himself in the hospital, explaining, "Well, doctor, we poured more beer over it because Roger didn't want to waste the stoli. Oh, by the way, he has HIV."

But what were the chances of that? No, it would be Roger: "Come on, Mark. We'll just pour a few beers over it to sterilize--not like Maureen's coming back for them--and I'll pick these pieces out myself. It's no big deal. Ah-aaow…"

Mark shook his head. He pocketed the AZT and picked up the beer. He left the room, then set the AZT and beer bottles beside one another on their ridiculously messy, post-modernist excuse for a table. Then he retrieve a blanket from his own bed and carried it into Roger's space. "Honestly, most children take better care of themselves," he grumbled, draping the blanket over Roger.

Half an hour later, Mark was using a spoon to catapult pieces of popcorn from the bowl near him to the one at the opposite end of the table when Roger wandered into the room. "Hey," he said.

Mark turned. "Oh, you're awake." To his surprise, he saw that Roger had wrapped the blanket around himself instead of putting on a shirt. In all likelihood this was an act of laziness, and so most people would interpret it, but Mark chose to see this as Roger's pathetic way of ducking his pride and saying his thanks.

Roger shrugged. "Could be a dream," he said. "Could all be one bad dream."

"Oh, is that why you don't take your AZT?" Mark asked before he had a chance to think. Roger was stunned into silence by the frankness; taking advantage of that, Mark continued hurriedly, before he lost his courage, "If you were wondering, Roger, this isn't just one bad dream."

Again Roger shrugged. He looked at the blanket, then wandered over into the kitchen-space over their industrial apartment and drank a gulp of milk directly from the carton. "You know," he said, "it's the world's most phallic snack: milk and a banana-nut muffin."

Mark tried to laugh, although he truly wanted to say, _Why not chase the AZT with the last of the milk_? He tried to play along, because Roger was trying to play his old self. "How about bananas and nuts?"

"Who eats bananas and nuts?" Roger asked, trying to sound amused. It was all trial and failure.

"I mean those chocolate-coated bananas, the ones with nuts on them."

"Oh, monkeys' tails?" Roger asked. "Well, yeah… for Collins, maybe, but… monkeys' tails are delicious. Don't perv up my snacks."

"Hey, you started this!" Mark said defensively, then sighed. He had blown his chance at playing normalcy with Roger.

But Roger, mustering up his courage, offered Mark a piece of his past as a trade for the blanket, the clinic, for everything. "Well… that's what she said. This girl I used to know. She used to get really down, and she made me play this game with her, World's Most Phallic as she called it. You'd try to think up the most phallic snack or animal or something."

It was awkward for Mark. He asked about Roger's past, Roger pushed him away. It was a pattern. That Roger had broken it broke Mark's responses, and he needed a set response. He didn't know how to respond without Maureen. Were things different? He had never known with her, but now she wouldn't be there to interrupt when he babbled on some tangent. "You… you sound like you miss her," he managed.

"Yeah, I do," Roger replied. For a moment his features softened into the pained look that took him in the midst of his vomiting spells, when he looked to Mark seeming to beg him to make everything a dream, make him wake up. It was then that Mark realized who Roger meant. _Shit!_ And he had gone and fumbled. _You sound like you miss her._ Of course. The name from Roger's nightmares: April. "Guess I always figured I'd get back in touch. Not long now," Roger commented bitterly.

"You don't really think this is all a dream, do you?"

"No. All my dreams lately have been pain."

Mark took a deep breath. "Roger, I researched AZT. I know what it is now, and I was just wondering if… if you knew, too."

Roger squinted at Mark. "Yeah, I know," he said. He drained the milk. "Coffee?"

"How can you think about coffee?" Mark demanded. "Don't you understand that AZT could actually prevent you from developing AIDS? You could live for another ten or twenty years, Roger. Don't you want that? Take your AZT!" Roger's silence gave Mark a painful moment to consider and accept what he had been trying to deny. "No. You don't want it."

"No, I don't. I'm dying, Mark. I have AIDS and I am going to die soon; I've accepted that."

"Well… would you take it anyway?"

Roger scoffed. "Why?" he asked.

Mark raised his voice to be heard over the tap as he answered, "For me!"

A flame hissed into being under the copper pot. "You're got Maureen."

"Maureen left me."

Roger looked up from his coffee. "When?" he asked.

"While you were sleeping. I came in. She went out. She's living with a lawyer named Joanne."

"Oh. She is a lesbian, then."

Incredulous, Mark asked, "You knew?"

"Well… I thought she might be. Look, I'm really sorry, Mark. I should've warned you, I just couldn't believe anyone could possibly leave you or hurt you that much."

That was the straw that broke his back. Mark had taken enough. Roger's stubborn, nurtured depression he could accept; Maureen's leaving him, in time, would be dulled. With his body as his keep, Mark was safe. When Roger stepped on Mark's emotions, enough became too much. "Like you have any fucking clue how much this hurts!" Mark shouted.

"As a matter of fact, I do!" Roger shouted back. "And let me know when you find Maureen bleeding herself dry, Mark!"

_Blundered again,_ Mark realized. Of course Roger knew the feeling. Instead of conceding the point, Mark shouted, "I don't fucking have to, Roger, because I've got you, you bastard!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means the AZT could save your life!"

"Not much of a life, is it? It's not just the AZT, Mark! It's the AZT and the antiretrovirals and the vitamins and the fucking tricyclic!"

"That doesn't matter! You don't want to live, Roger! You could, you could, just take your AZT, but you're nothing but a coward! You haven't accepted your death, you're just too scared to give a shit about anyone, but I'm not April, Roger! I'm not going to abandon you, so why're you abandoning me?" Mark's throat hurt from the shouting, but a part of him had no desire to stop. Before he realized he had risen, he was standing immediately before Roger, staring him into answering.

"I'm not abandoning you, Mark," Roger said, and Mark almost believed he had won. He almost thought his outburst had moved Roger to concession to his perspective. Then Roger completed his sentence, "I'm not abandoning you, I'm doing you a favor by taking my miserable self out of your life."

Mark cursed Roger and punched him.


	7. The Odd Pill

Disclaimer: I own nothing

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mark awoke, confused, on the couch. "What's going on?" he tried to ask, but the first word came out muffled. Something was blocking his jaw.

"Sorry," Roger said. He automatically set the bag of ice on his lap, then realized what he'd done and, with a hiss of pain, moved it to the table. "It's for the swelling. On your jaw," he amended quickly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Mark rubbed his jaw; shots of pain warned him not to do that again. He sat up. "What happened?" he asked. "I thought I hit you. Probably my memories twisted with dreams; you hit me."

Roger laughed. He was sitting on the table, a habit Mark was tired of discouraging. His eyes were red. "You hit me," he said, then mimed it, hitting himself in the chest. "You were probably aiming for my face, but…" He began to laugh. "Anyway, we were mad, I hit you back, and you," he paused for a moment, though he knew, recollecting, hoping his memories proved untrue. "Fell," Roger finished at last. "I caught you, brought you over here and got the ice. You've been out for maybe fifteen minutes."

Mark shook his head. "G-d," he said. "I'm so pathetic I can't even hit you."

"This is better, anyway," Roger told him.

"How do you work that out?"

"Mark, I wouldn't've cared if you'd hurt me. You didn't, by the way, it--"

Embarrassed, feeling considerably emasculated by his inability to impress himself physically or emotionally on Roger, Mark interrupted, "Okay, can we skip that? I get it. I'm pathetic, my life is pathetic, and that's why you've so easily dismissed it and decided you're going to die, because I'm just not enough. Not enough of a friend, am I, Rog?" Immediately Mark hung his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't've gotten angry with you. You're just so infuriating, sometimes I want to strangle you!"

Roger laughed. "Good luck!" he commented. Mark gave him an angry look. "Sorry." Roger blushed and grinned; Mark groaned. He hated when Roger did that. He hated the way girls melted when Roger did that. They wet themselves at a single glance. _Fucking rock star. _"The point is--" suddenly serious "--that you're right."

"I'm what?" Mark asked.

Again Roger laughed. Mark gritted his teeth; why did Roger have to laugh at everything? If it wasn't some poor double-entendre, Roger had some pathetic private joke, one he refused to share. "You're right, Mark. I wasn't thinking about you at all. I was being a miserable bastard."

Mark was taken aback. Those words paralleled his thoughts, though he hadn't the heart to say so. "Yeah, well…"

"I want to make it up to you," Roger said, "and I've thought of two things I'm going to do." He covered his mouth with his hand and giggled.

Mark sighed and stood up. "I should've known," he muttered, heading off.

"Mark, no! Mark, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way, it just sounded funny. I… d'you remember what me and Collins used to call this?"

Mark nodded. "Yeah, the genius hours."

As Roger continued, he gesticulated with unnecessary vigor. "Do you know why? It's because you can start over every day and in these hours it's not the day or the night, so you can be whoever, whatever. You don't have to be sad, or run away, or miss April."

For a moment Mark stared at Roger. He had never stayed up into the genius hours, having the unfortunate inability to function at any extensive length without sleep. "I… thought you were just so stupid, you hit brilliance," he admitted. "That and you used the 'new day' excuse to act completely immature."

"That, too," Roger said, shrugging. "When am I not immature?" he wondered. "But who cares? Mark…"

A loud, electronic beep announced midnight and time for Roger to take his pills. The two men stared at one another across the loft, Mark daring Roger to truly apologize, to do the one thing that would make it right, to stop acting like a such an infuriatingly stubborn child! He had always been stubborn and immature, like a ten-year-old told not to use his lunch money for sweets. Of course he was going to use his lunch money for sweets, or in Roger's case, for smack.

_Of course!_ Mark realized. _Roger's Roger again._ Since Mark awoke, his friend's exhausting habits had been irking him more than usual, logically, because Roger had started behaving like his old self. He laughed at everything, related nearly all comments to sex, he smiled his aggravating, girl-catching smile. Roger, who hadn't changed a bit since his sixteenth birthday (if Mark had to guess a date), was back.

It was then that Mark knew what he had to do. Treating Roger as an adult hadn't worked, he had simply gotten to be even more of a lazy, drunken introvert. Treating him as an equal had provoked emotion and violence. "Roger," Mark said quietly, deliciously victorious, "take your AZT."

Roger nodded. "Okay."

He set out all the pills for Mark. "These are antiretrovirals, these are antibiotics, these are vitamins," Roger said, with each category indicating a group of pill bottle. "This is the most beautiful drug on the entire planet," he added, ogling his coffee.

Mark grabbed the mug and moved it away. "Not until you've taken your pills," he said. "What's that one?"

The last bottle stood alone from the others. When Roger emptied his pill bag, the bag he used to carry all of his various bottles of pills, it had rolled out. Upon reading the label, however, Roger had only made a face at set it aside. He sighed and looked at the medications. "I won't take that one," he said. "I'll take the others--"

"But that's the AZT, isn't it?" Mark demanded.

"No. AZT is an antiretroviral. That's the tricyclic. That's for another kind of sickness."

"What kind?" Mark asked.

"The kind…" Roger considered his words carefully. "It's the kind of sickness that I don't think I need drugs for."

Trying to speak as gently as possible, Mark began, "Roger--"

"I'm not sick like that!"

"If the doctors say you are--"

"They're mental adjustment drugs, all right?" Roger demanded. "That's what a tricyclic is, Mark, it's an antidepressant, and I didn't want you to know they'd given it to me."

Venturing a slow query, Mark asked, "Why not?"

"Because I am not crazy!"

_Your behavior suggests otherwise…_ Mark decided against arguing. "Okay," he said. "So take your AZT and… all the other pills--except that one--and then I'll give you your coffee. And you can stop being grumpy."

"I'm not grumpy," Roger protested. He opened his pill bottles and selected one pill from each, cupped the capsules in his hand, then clapped his hand to his mouth, tilted his head back and promptly swallowed every last one of them. Mark shivered and handed Roger his coffee. "Ah. _Now_ I'm not grumpy." Roger drank the entire mug in a single gulp, then went to the coffeepot for a refill. "That's the first thing I was willing to do for you," Roger explained. "The second… do you remember that time you tried to interview me, when you were doing your documentary on the Bohemian lifestyle?"

Blinking sorrowfully, Mark asked, "You mean when you took my camera away and said you were going to pee on it, and you took it into the bathroom and only gave it back because I started crying?"

"Precisely. Mark, you're fondling the camera. Look, I don't know if you're still doing that… I guess I haven't been much of a friend. But if you want to, you can interview me."

Mark looked at his camera, then at Roger, an idea forming in his mind. Horribly, Mark smiled.

TO BE CONTINUED…

…but not for a while. There's one more chapter coming, but it won't be up until I get home from vacation, about a week from now.


	8. One Month to Home

Disclaimer: I don't own it. I'm just playing G-d for a little while...

Collins hefted the package in his hand. As if the return address and padded envelope had not betrayed enough the contents, its weight verified his suspicions. Feeling a tinge of pride that Mark had completed a film, and blushing that Mark had thought of him, Collins slit open the envelope and shook the video tape into his hand. A note fell out with it, scribbled on notebook paper. Setting down the video, Collins unfolded the note and read:

For whatever good it's done... I wonder if there should be a comma in that sentence. Keep this safe, Collins. I know you will. How are you? How's MIT? We're holding up all right; better since Roger knocked me unconscious. Yes, he did. He still won't go out, but he's taking his pills. See you at Christmas. Mark. P.S. Keep watching.

Curious, Collins slid the tape into a player and pressed play.

The film opened with a shot of Roger, sitting on the windowsill with his legs folded, hugging himself, his typical cup of coffee close at hand. Collins started. Mark's previous attempts to film Roger had resulted in various creative, painful threats. Why had Roger suddenly changed? Collins' stomach flopped. He missed Alphabet City, for all its violence and danger. After all, it was home.

From behind the camera, a far distant sound, came Mark's voice, drawing Collins' attention to the grainy image of Roger sitting on the windowsill, his daydreaming-nostalgic pose so common it struck a nerve in Collins' homesickness. "Say your name," Mark instructed.

Roger said, "You already know my name."

"Roger Davis," Mark prompted, enunciating each word.

Roger repeated, "Roger Davis."

"Hi, Roger."

Roger laughed. "Hi, Oprah," he said.

"You want to tell us about rehab?"

"No," Roger said, then proceeded to do so. "Well, uh... they had these potato things at breakfast. Yeah. I miss those. Delicious."

Mark laughed. "Okay, well, that's good, that they fed you." Roger smiled briefly and raised his eyebrows, a compromise between maintaining a smile and giving none at all, then rubbed his stomach. He laughed at himself.

"Rehab is a bunch of junkies hanging around. You never slept because inevitably, somewhere, someone was screaming. They had therapy. That… I didn't like that. Occupation? Junkie. Occupation? I used to be a singer in a band. For the first week I had privileges revoked, until these teenage volunteers came in and actually told them that I had been a rock star—their words, not mine. There were sports, too; it was like junior high. Everyone has to do sports. Except, you know, no uncomfortable, vaguely homoerotic locker rooms." Roger pulled a face, aptly describing exactly his feelings with regards to junior high.

Collins laughed, imagining Roger doing any sport, and those poor people who had to convince him to. Mark asked, "What happened to you? What was withdrawal like?"

Roger's face darkened. He turned away, staring absently out the window. "I fell asleep at noon woke up sweating and trembling at midnight. My arms and legs hurt, like… it was like the bones were twisting. I was so cold, I wanted to curl up, but I couldn't. Eventually I fell off the bed. I was lying on the floor, screaming, uh, for--at April, God. For you. I was freezing and convulsing... I threw up. And I had this thing called, uh, priapism--you know what that is?"

The shot trembled. From the distance came Mark's voice: "No."

Roger barely spoke in his reply; never one to project speech, he barely muttered now. "It means my... it means Marky," he amended feebly, trying to laugh at himself, "wouldn't go down. Constant, painful... I was ready to cut the thing off."

"But you didn't?"

Roger scoffed. He picked up his coffee mug with his fingers around the rim and took a long swallow, then set the cup down again. "Don't get your hopes up," he said. Mark laughed at the pathetic joke; Roger covered his face with his hand, shaking his head at his own laughter. "Stupid double-entendre."

Mark asked, "Why don't you go out?"

Suddenly serious, Roger shook his head. "I don't wanna talk about it," he muttered.

"Okay, um… then, would you sing?"

Collins sucked in air with his teeth on his lip, whistling. Roger's head snapped up. "What?" he asked.

"Sing," Mark repeated. "Anything. Come on, Roger, you promised."

For a moment Roger simply scowled at Mark. Miles and borders distant, Collins felt himself responding to Roger's scowls in the usual manner: trying not to laugh. Then Roger grinned and broke out with, "Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen…" The boys laughed; from Massachusetts, Collins joined them.

"My roommate, the famous carol singer," Mark said.

"The Christmas caroler and the Jew. We're a situation comedy in the making," Roger replied.

"In the flesh." Playing along, Mark said, "I'll just go make matzo ball soup."

"Do you eat any other part of the matzo?" Roger asked.

Mark groaned. "Don't cut yourself on that wit," he warned.

Roger shrugged. "Why bother with wit when I've got broken needles?" he replied flippantly, and tried to laugh. Collins hissed. He, too, had seen the scars. After a moment's uncomfortable silence, his expression softened. "Mark… Mark, you know I wasn't serious. It was a joke. I'm sorry. Mark?"

"It's just… I can't believe I'm doing this… you're a real bastard sometimes, Roger, but you've been a good friend." Roger and Collins recoiled, shocked. "You don't have any needles," Mark said. "I got rid of them when you went into rehab. Excuse me." The image on the screen shifted as Mark set his camera down; footsteps indicated his departure. Roger left the windowsill; Collins watched the apartment, unable to see either of his ex-roommates. _Keep watching_, Mark had asked.

The telephone rang once, then again. "Roger, answer the phone!" Mark shouted. The telephone rang again. "Roger!" Mark called. At the corner of the screen, Collins saw Roger walk over to the telephone. He stood over it, his hand poised as though to lift the receiver, shivering. One more ring, then Roger drew back as the answering machine took the call.

"Hey, it's me." Collins was surprised to hear his own voice. "Anyone there? Okay, well, I'm sure you're having a much better time than I am… even the low-carb pasta at Life Café beats our cafeteria here. I thought I'd call and make sure of that, though—sure you were doing all right. You'd better be taking your AZT, Roger, or I'll kick your ass at Christmas."

A moment after Collins hung up, Mark's footsteps could be heard. "Who was it?" he asked.

"Collins."

"So why didn't you answer?" he asked, curious.

"I dunno," Roger said. "I—"

The film ended. Collins sat still, staring at the screen. There it was: the life he was missing. Roger had stopped answering the telephone. How terrified could a man become? What was he terrified of? Poor Mark; poor, reliable Mark bore the burden of maturity. Collins wished he could help Mark, whose needs seemed so overlooked, or Roger, who was half a heartbeat from becoming a sniveling trainwreck.

A knocking at the door drew his attention. Collins glanced over his shoulder, sighed and turned off the television monitor. As he went to answer the door, he crossed off another day on his calendar. One more month to home.

THE END!

A general thank-you to everyone who reviewed, I loved hearing from you! Truly, you guys rock.


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